This is the official blog of Sgt Ellie Bloggs, a real live police sergeant on the front line of England. It's not the official opinion of my police force, but all the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't pay my salary.

Friday, December 28, 2007

A kick in the face for feminists

I am depressed.

I think of myself as a feminist, on the whole. I don't think women are better than men, or identical to them in every way. But I do believe in the idea of "different but equal". I don't think there's a job out there that can't be done as well by the right man or woman, and that it's social mores holding both genders back more than it is innate failings.

Yet I find myself unable to tell the difference between three of the most powerful women in the United Kingdom at the moment.And that's only partly because of their hair-dos.

They've got a lot in common: they've all been embroiled in rows over dishonesty; they all represent the "working mum"; they've all campaigned on issues of diversity on their rise to power; they all seem to think that hacking people off is a sign they are doing their job properly. Why, oh why, does Labour promote these interchangeable females whose main positive attribute seems to be their gender? (I could have included Hazel Blears on the list.)

There are a couple of more intelligent, dynamic types who have graced Labour's equality campaign (Ruth Kelly springs to mind), but on the whole Gordon Brown seems determined to keep us down by promoting the kind of women who make WOMEN sexist.

Is this the kind of woman who gets promoted by a man? In the police, the promoting is done by men, because most senior police officers are men.

Promoting the brand, positive discrimination and supporting those who have licked your arse for long enough seems to be the order of the day.

Then get out the shafting stick and shaft everyone you can yet try to make it seem as though itis all somehow essential to do so. Gloss it up in a nuber of fancy costumes and hope to cover it over with some other persons bad press.

Sounds like an ideal recipe for Government. I could have stumbled onto something here.

Female politicians come in a lot of varieties, but it's rare that you see a female politician being promoted as a 'thinker' or intellectual (which I think, to a degree, all politicians should be). I guess that's considered too threatening.

We've rather surprised ourselves in Aus by landing a female deputy prime minister - and one who is considered extremely intelligent (and has a mildly socialist background).

Of course, the main things people say about her involve her red hair. And then there were those "deliberately barren" comments from some mouth-breather from the opposing party.

Bloggs, the service does the same with some Black officer's. They pick and mix. As long as some leaders benefit diversity means nothing to them. Liberals!Excellent article, a great deal of honesty from you. Some female managers won't admit this happens, because if they do, they are out of the club!

Funny you should mention Ruth Kelly. When on night shift recently we spent our refreshers talking about MPs and one wag wondered if Ruth Kelly and her Opus Dei mates organised their Christmas do by having a whip round and then going on the lash?Sorry, it was 3am, we were tired and you had to be there.

Is this the same Ruth Kelly who was formerly education minister and who sent her son to private school.If it wasn't for the education policies of her party the state education system wouldn't be in the mess it is in.....So they bugger it up for everyone else and opt out themselves !The only decent female MP ever was Thatcher ! She didn't complain about any "glass ceilings" etc...

As a Tory I agree that Ruth Kelly is the most notable exception to the rule. Not liked by her colleagues because she is generally straightforward, smarter than most of them and practising Catholic. I like her.